A nomination had been received for Rev
Preb Michael Metcalf to be elected as
Chairman. There were no nominations for
Vice-Chairman, and it was suggested that this should be deferred to
the next meeting of SACRE. No further
nominations for Chairman were received and it was:

RESOLVED – That:

a)
Rev Preb Michael Metcalf be elected as
Chairman for the ensuing year; and

b)
The election of Vice-Chairman be
deferred until the next meeting.

49.

Welcome to New Members

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed Bernard Peters, County
Councillor representative and Judy Wyman, ASCL representative, to
the SACRE.

The SACRE received an update on key issues
that had occurred since their last meeting, including:

a)
There would be a delay in reporting on the results of the
Summer 2017 GCSE and A Level
examinations in Religious Studies. The
Insight, Planning and Performance Team at the County Council were
in the process of obtaining the data.
The performance of Staffordshire’s maintained schools would
be reported at the Spring term
meeting.

b)
Inter Faith Week would take place from Sunday 12 to Sunday 19
November. It had three clear aims:

·
To strengthen good inter faith relations at all levels;

·
To increase awareness of the different and distinct faith
communities in the UK, in particular celebrating and building on
the contribution which their members make to their neighbourhoods
and to wider society; and

·
To increase understanding between people of religious and
non-religious beliefs.

The Inter Faith
Week Toolkit had ideas for marking the week, complete with helpful
checklists for organisers. The Inter
Faith Network had also published a short, illustrated report on
Inter Faith Week 2016: Stories from 2016, Inspiration for
2017. It contained examples of
activities organised by schools last year, and would inspire
schools to take part this year.
Stafford and District Friends of Faith were holding a peace event
on Monday 20 November, and SACRE members were invited to
attend.

c)
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place on 27 January each year,
and is a day for everyone to remember the millions of people
affected by the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution, and the subsequent
genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. On HMD the survivors of these regimes are honoured
and people are challenged to work to end discrimination and
prejudice, and pledge to help create a safer, better
future. Involvement in the event ranged
from civic events, displays, exhibitions, talks and
activities. The theme for 2018 is
“The Power of Words” and SACRE were given a link to the
website where new resources linked to this theme were
available.

d)
New from the BBC for four to seven year olds, “Religions of
the World” was a series of ten animated “Octonaut-Style” stories from six different
world religions. The BBC commissioned the programmes, and RE
Today’s Lat Blaylock worked as
their adviser for this short series. An
animated A to Z Guide for pupils aged 11-14 that explored and
introduced a variety of religious topics had also been created.
Alongside each film there was more information about the content
and suggestions of how it could be used in the classroom.

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive and
Director for Families and Communities

Minutes:

At their last meeting members were informed
that Staffordshire SACRE had been awarded £2,725 by
Westhill/NASACRE to complete the
proposed Explore-Engage-Reflect project, which would take place on
22 November 2017. It was now nearing
capacity with 89 delegates from 18 schools attending. Schools included primary, middle and secondary
phase settings.

The rationale behind the project was that it
was intended to embed the new Staffordshire Agreed Syllabus in
RE. The Syllabus affirmed that the role
of RE was to foster in each pupil a growing level of religious
literacy, through three complementary aims, encapsulated as
Exploring, Engaging and Reflecting. The
first two of these corresponded to the standard themes of
“learning about” and “learning from”
religion. The third aim was innovatory
and radical, it called for pupils to “acquire a growing range
of the social, spiritual and emotional skills and dispositions
appropriate to living well in a religiously plural and open
society, by reflecting on the reality of religious diversity and on
the issues raised by living in a diverse world”. SACRE was seeking to support and empower schools
to fulfil the requirements of the third aim through the creation of
a face to faith experience entitled “Explore – Engage
– Reflect.” It would have a
Christian and Muslim focus and would be led by adherents to the
faiths who were skilled in the field of
education. It would take the form of a
morning encounter with Christianity and an afternoon encounter with
Islam (or vice-versa). It would be
designed to be fully interactive with pupils exploring artefacts,
images and text; engaging with key questions relevant to the faiths
in question; and reflecting on what it means to live your faith
within England through a real opportunity for dialogue. The Youth Net would be commissioned to deliver the
Christian based content. This was a
Stafford based Christian charity whose leader, Sam Phillips, was a
member of SACRE.Waheeda Qureshi, a member of the Linguistic and
Cultural Mediator team at Entrust, and Mohammed Fahim (former team member and now independent)
would be commissioned to deliver the Muslim content. Emma Jardine-Phillips, Education Consultant,
County RE Adviser and Advanced Skills Teacher in RE would be
commissioned to oversee the project and report developments to
NASACRE/Westhill.

In considering this matter there was wider
debate around how the work of SACRE was promoted and awareness
raised of its existence. The response
was that this was not done in an active and effective way, although
schools should be aware of it, as it was education and schools
focused. Its role was to fulfil
statutory functions under the auspices of the County Council.
However it was acknowledged that when
schools transferred over to academy status they would not have to
follow the Agreed Syllabus, and there was no right of access or
means of holding them to account. It
was agreed that it would be helpful to reinvigorate the website and
include pictures and pen portraits of members.

a)
SACRE noted that the following resolution would be taken to the
NASACRE AGM in May 2018:

“That the Annual Subscription to NASACRE should be
raised from £95 per year to £105 per year with
immediate effect (ie for the academic
year 2018-19 and onwards).”

This was a modest
increase, give that it was the first increase for perhaps ten years
or more. NASACRE’s Executive
Committee believed that the increase was justified because of
increases in the costs of its core activities over the years,
including administrative support, travel and subsistence,
consultancy fees, and membership of/partnership with other
(related) bodies, including the cost of representing NASACRE on
these bodies and/or participating in their programmes. The true cost would be great deal higher were
NASACRE not sustained by the voluntary contribution of time, energy
and expertise generously given by its officers and committee
members. Procedurally, the mechanisms
for dealing with this motion would be circulated with the
communications and papers for the AGM itself. However, SACREs may well discuss and vote on the
resolution in advance of the AGM. The
Chairman asked if SACRE were prepared to vote on this
issue. Following an assurance that the
increase would not mean that any SACRE would be unable to pay,
members agreed to vote. The outcome of
the vote was as follows:

·
Committee A – In Favour

·
Committee B – In Favour

·
Committee C – In Favour

·
Committee D – In Favour

This represented a
unanimous vote in favour of the increase to the Annual Subscription
Fee to NASACRE.

b)
The Commission on Religious Education had launched a consultation
on the Interim Report, “Religious Education For All”, which would be open until 9.00 am on
4 December. It was important that the
Commission heard from as wide a range of people and organisations
as possible. People were encouraged to
consider responding either in a personal capacity or on behalf of
an organisation, or both. Members were
provided with links to the call for evidence, and a link for
questions about this or the Commission on Religious
Education. In order to debate the
content, and hopefully influence the final report, NASACRE were
once again holding a joint conference with AREIAC at the Ibis
Hotel, Birmingham on 24 November 2017.
The conference would seek answers to many vital questions regarding
the Interim Report, including what its recommendations might mean
for pupils, teachers, advisers and SACREs. The Chairman invited members to split into two
groups to discuss the proposed draft text for the proposed national
entitlement for RE contained within the Executive Summary of the
Interim Report.

c)
The Religious Education Council and the National Association of
Teachers of RE had created a new State of the Nation report on RE
provision within secondary schools in England. The report included date from the School Workforce
Census and GCSE figures, as well as survey responses from 790
secondary schools. This project was
running parallel to, but independent of, the continuing work of the
Commission on Religious ... view
the full minutes text for item 53.

SACREs are required to produce an annual
report of their work. This report would
be distributed electronically to NASACRE and headteachers of all schools in the County, and
would be available to teacher associations and local faith
communities via the Entrust website. It would also be taken to the
Prosperous Staffordshire Select Committee. SACRE were requested to read and approve the report
prior to general distribution.

Members of SACRE were asked to consider
proposed further guidance to schools regarding visits to places of
worship, or trips which include visits to places with religious
significance.

Some schools had experienced a reluctance from a few parents to allow their
children to take part in visits to places of worship. Reasons given had included finance, safety issues
or a political agenda. The guidance
aimed to support head teachers and RE subject leaders in the
planning and implementation of visits, trying to pre-empt any
parental concerns. Because visits to sacred spaces were an
invaluable learning opportunity it was important to ensure the
experience was positive for all involved. Visits to places of worship required careful
planning and consideration of teaching methodology in order to
maximise the learning potential and to avoid any parental
concerns. Teachers should establish
stable relationships with appropriate places of worship, ensuring
that pre-visits were made and risk assessments carried
out. Visits to sacred spaces were
believed to bring the Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education to
life, and underpin the role of RE in helping to prepare and equip
pupils for life and citizenship in today’s diverse and plural
Britain. The purpose of all visits was
educational, not to evangelise or proselytise so a visit should not
compromise a pupil’s own religious or non-religious
beliefs.

Members considered a number of suggestions for
preparing pupils for a visit so that they would be comfortable with
any differences they saw. They also
considered a Code of Conduct for any member of a belief community
who supported Staffordshire Schools with their RE. This was adapted from the National Association of
Teachers of RE in their guidance document “Religious
Believers Visiting Schools”. The
guidance also covered: the need for a clear rationale about visits;
ways of preventing a problem from arising; preparation in school
before the visit; helpful questions to pose during the visit; and
follow-up activities afterwards. There
was also a sample letter to parents, which had been adapted from
guidance produced by Surrey SACRE, which set out the details of the
visit and offered practical advice and reassurance.

Every school was required to have an
Educational Visits Co-ordinator to comply with safeguarding
demands. As Local Authorities were
focused on health and safety as well as safeguarding, it was likely
that as schools implemented more stringent requirements they would
become more demanding about the health and safety and safeguarding
expectations of the places they wished to visit. It would be useful to suggest that schools ask
faith leaders whose venues they wished to visit for sight of their
health and safety policies and risk assessments.

It was suggested that once the guidance had
been approved SACRE may wish to share the information with Stafford
Friends of Faith for dissemination, to ensure that the local places
of worship hosting visits from schools have some advice to raise
awareness as to how schools would need help to plan their visits,
and the questions they may be asking in advance. Members commented
that ... view
the full minutes text for item 55.

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive and
Director for Families and Communities

Minutes:

SACRE received a breakdown of the current
budget for the financial year 2017-18.
The total budget allocation was £12,860, plus the additional
Westill/NASACRE Award of
£2,725.The spend to date was £6,500 contribution
towards support for SACRE, and £365 on subscription and
conference fees. The remaining balance
was £8,720, of which £3,012 was committed to
Explore-Engage-Reflect. This left a
final unspent balance of £5,708.

RESOLVED – That the
current budget position be noted.

58.

Date of Next Meeting

The next SACRE meeting is scheduled for
Wednesday 7 February 2018, 2.00 pm, at The Kingston Centre,
Stafford.

Minutes:

RESOLVED – That the next
SACRE meeting be held on Wednesday 7 February 2018, at 2.00pm at
The Kingston Centre, Stafford.